Monitoring cameras are used in many different applications, both indoors and outdoors. For cost and efficiency reasons it is usually desirable to keep the number of cameras in an area as low as possible, meaning that large spaces are often to be covered using only a few devices. Wide-angle cameras are able to cover large areas and are therefore a popular choice in such situations. Such cameras are in most instances mounted in a ceiling or on a post facing downwards, giving a half-spherical field of view of 180°.
A downside of using wide-angle cameras is that details close to the perimeter of the camera view are difficult to perceive due to optical distortions and low resolution. This is due to the fact that the ratio of imaged area of the scene per pixel of the image sensor will increase with the distance from the center of the image. Therefore an operator viewing an image from a wide-angle camera may miss events taking place near the periphery of the wide-angle view, and, even if the event is detected, there are in many cases not sufficient detail in the peripheral area of the image for identification of an object or an event. Camera solutions which provide better image quality near the periphery of a wide-angle view are therefore of interest.